One of the main objectives of the food industry is to continually improve the safety and quality of its products. To accomplish this objective, the industry must constantly monitor the efficacy of implemented food safety programs. One such exemplary monitoring program involves sampling of product to verify the absence of pathogens such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes. 
Current food sampling techniques, as performed by the industry, are primarily manual procedures that involve either cutting of food pieces, or swabbing surfaces using sponges. These procedures consume substantial time and material, are laborious, and promote product contamination via multiple handling steps.
Typical sampling plans for meat products follow a ‘two-class’ attribute plan, based on testing for the presence (positive result) or absence (negative result) of an organism. For example, following conventions set forth by the International Commission on Microbiological Specifications for Foods (ICMSF) (ICMSF; Microorganisms in Foods, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002), for ‘two-class’ attribute plans, the probability of acceptance (Pa) for a lot is a function of three factors. The first is the actual incident rate (IR) of E. coli O157:H7 in a lot at a given sampling point. The second is “n”, representing the number of sample units collected for the lot, and the third is “c”, representing a maximum allowable number of sample units yielding unsatisfactory results for the lot.
The US Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Service has a zero tolerance level for E. coli O157:H7 in non-intact beef products (see USDA-FSIS: United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service; 1999 FSIS Policy on non-intact raw beef products contaminated with E. coli O157:H7; Food Safety and Inspection Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. (available online; http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/background/O157policy.htm)). A significant consequence of the USDA-FSIS zero tolerance level for E. coli O157:H7 is that a lot of product is defective as soon as a positive result is obtained from a sample unit. No sampling plan can guarantee the complete absence of a pathogen unless all material in the lot is sampled, which is a practical impossibility. Furthermore, it is not yet commercially possible to produce product that is completely free of pathogens. Therefore, it is impossible to a priori design a sampling plan that will meet USDA-FSIS requirements. However, it would be highly desirable to improve the level of confidence of detecting pathogens in meat products if they are present.
Therefore, there is a pronounced need in the art for methods and apparatus to increase the power of detection for pathogens present in, e.g., meat products. There is a pronounced need in the art for methods and devices allowing for more sanitary sampling with reduced sample handling, and that allow for increased speed of sampling. There is a pronounced need in the art for methods and devices allowing for reduction of the cost of sampling materials, and for devices and equipment that may be easily sterilized prior to reuse. There is a pronounced need in the art for methods and devices enabling reduction of product loss by allowing for sampling smaller discrete pieces. There is a pronounced need in the art for methods and devices that allow for increasing the power of pathogen detection by taking a significantly higher number of representative samples in a cost-effective manner that reduces product waste, while precluding the necessity to sample all material.